Dear Nicola, how do you cope with flaky friends?

An agony aunt column dedicated to single people

Dear Nicola,

I’m really struggling at the moment with flaky friends.

I live in a miserable flat share with a flatmate who doesn’t come out of his room and also work from home for a company which is based abroad. I need time with friends face-to-face to have fun with, get support and get hugs from. Sometimes I will make a plan and it will be the only thing I have in the diary that week and then at the last minute the friend or friends will bail. Often the reason will be vague or they won’t really give one. This means I then spend the whole week alone.

There was a period after the pandemic when I was inundated with invites and everyone seemed to appreciate how important it is to see friends in real life and now it feels like that has been lost.

I wish people understood how devastating it can be when you’re single. It’s a particular kind of loneliness. It makes me feel so upset each time it happens and it seems to happen more and more. It makes me feel like I have no value or that I just don’t matter as much to them as much as they matter to me.

I feel like other readers of this newsletter will understand?

Is it just me or are people a lot more flaky nowadays?

Any thoughts?

K